


Primary Gain

by notavodkashot



Series: Old Archive [18]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: But it kinda is, Haru is team mom and Squalo has no say about it, I hesitate to call it a happy ending, It's not perfect but it's better, M/M, Navigating one's sexlife post trauma, Rape Recovery, Sometimes it doesn't stop hurting so much as you learn to live your life around it, Squalo and Gokudera are the worst best friends, They're better, They're stronger for it in the long run, Yamamoto and Gokudera are the REAL worst best friends, Yamamoto and Squalo have a spat, but it still hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 11:48:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12168267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/pseuds/notavodkashot
Summary: Time might not heal all wounds, but it teaches you to live with them.





	Primary Gain

**Primary Gain.**

 

  
  
  
I.  
  


_Ah, my dear angry Lord,  
Since thou dost love, yet strike;  
Cast down, yet help afford;  
Sure I will do the like.  
  
I will complain, yet praise;  
I will bewail, approve;  
And all my sour-sweet days  
I will lament and love._  
  
~  _"Bitter-Sweet,"_  by George Herbert.

  
  
  
  
Squalo cracked his back loudly as he stepped into the room, yawning lazily. Behind him, Gokudera looked perky and excited as he hadn't been since Haru had given birth to their first child. In bed, nursing a broken leg in a pile of fluffy pillows, Yamamoto watched the mismatched pair with an amused glint in his eyes and let out a content sigh once he could see they were both whole and unharmed. He had been more than a little worried, to be honest, when he broke his leg and realized he'd have to stay behind while Gokudera and Squalo accompanied Tsuna in his trip to Italy, but it was hardly anyone's fault but his own. Much as he hated to admit it, he wasn't quite as young anymore. He was certain Squalo's teasing about being a silly old man was just  _teasing_ , but sometimes... well, sometimes he was jolted back to reality and he realized he wasn't twenty anymore.  
  
"Well?" Yamamoto asked, looking from Squalo to Gokudera, then giving Squalo a finely tuned look until the Italian grumbled and went to perch at the edge of the bed, next to him. "How was it?"  
  
"Dreadful," Squalo growled, scowling and giving in to the tacit invitation to share Yamamoto's fortress of pillows.  
  
"Perfect!" Gokudera, on the other hand, grabbed the old chair by the dresser and dragged it noisily so he could sit close to the two without actually intruding into Yamamoto's personal space.  
  
Yamamoto had even managed to hug him, Haru and Tsuna during the last Christmas party, but Gokudera preferred not to take that for granted, and always made an extra effort to keep Yamamoto at ease. He knew better than most how damaging taking things for granted could be, and he had no hurry to ever have a repeat of those days when he and Yamamoto had been more like mortal enemies, rather than best friends.  
  
However, his consideration for his best friend most certainly did  _not_  extend to his loudmouth moron of a lover, which was why Gokudera gave into the little spat with gusto.  
  
Yamamoto chuckled as his lover and his best friend dissolved into bickering about their vastly opposing views on the trip, one hand casually curled along Squalo's side, cradling the Italian against him. He tightened his hold slightly, causing Squalo to fall silent and give him a surly glare.  
  
"What  _I_  want to know," Yamamoto intoned patiently, arching an eyebrow at both men, "is if Tsuna's made a choice."  
  
"Yes!" If Gokudera got any more excited, Yamamoto feared for his heart. "And this new candidate is  _perfect_."  
  
Both guardians tactfully ignored Squalo's snide  _you said the same about the last four_ , and chatted about the future of the family, their memories, and the minutia of the trip to choose a new candidate for the seat of the Eleventh.  
  
Squalo sullenly declared Vongola to be doomed.  
  
  
  
  
"Can I have my laptop back now?" Squalo said -  _whined_  - grumpily shuffling around the room as he worked himself out of his clothes.  
  
In bed, Yamamoto continued typing away.  
  
"No," Yamamoto replied, looking at him over the top of the screen. "You're just going to play that silly game of yours. I'm busy."  
  
"VOOOII, it's hardly my fucking fault you got yours blown up," the Italian grumbled, crawling into bed with him. "Leg."  
  
Yamamoto dutifully raised his cast so that Squalo could get in bed without much trouble. It was a bit awkward, and there had already been one too many painful jolts as they tried to figure out how to work around Yamamoto's injury. It had been a mix of bad timing, bad luck and bad planning, landing him a mess two days before Tsuna was supposed to fly to Italy to meet his latest prospect for a successor - Tsuna was certainly starting to appreciate the troubles the Ninth had gone through, when choosing him - and Yamamoto had firmly told Tsuna - and Gokudera, and Squalo, and Haru, and Lambo, and Ryohei - to go on without him. And he'd  _certainly_  been firm about  _not_  all together delaying the important meeting, he'd have none of that. The fracture had been far too delicate to just heal it with sun flames alone, and now Yamamoto was left stranded in bed for some weeks. And all the boredom that entitled.  
  
Granted, Squalo tried, but he had his limits, and there was just so much time he could stand to be inside the room without starting to get antsy and violent. And Gokudera dropped by, but he had much work to do, dealing with the tedious process of setting up the succession. And everyone else visited him for a little while, but he understood why they felt awkward and not so very keen to stay long hours talking about nothing and just keeping him company. He really did, but that didn't mean he didn't get lonely sometimes.  
  
And well, it was really Squalo's fault for leaving his laptop within reach, and thus providing suitable entertainment while he healed.  
  
"You could go and get me a new one," Yamamoto suggested impassively, eyes on the screen and ignoring Squalo's chin on the curve of his elbow.  
  
"I learned pretty early on  _not_  to buy you anything," the Italian snorted, squinting to read what Yamamoto was typing and shifting about to find a comfortable spot, "you have shitty taste and are impossible to please."  
  
"Am not," Yamamoto pouted, " _you_  have weird taste. And those boots were torture devices."  
  
"The boots were fucking awesome and you're a cranky old man," Squalo scoffed, "are you sure you're gay?"  
  
Finally dragging his eyes off the screen, Yamamoto arched an eyebrow and smiled sardonically.  
  
"Are you sure you shouldn't be in Lussuria's bed?"  
  
Squalo glowered.  
  
"VOOOII! DON'T MAKE ME BREAK THE OTHER FUCKING LEG!"  
  
Yamamoto yelped and jumped in surprise, not having expected Squalo would actually use  _that_  volume and accidentally elbowing Squalo's chin. In the aftermath, Squalo bit his tongue and dived to save his laptop and Yamamoto hissed as his leg protested the rough movement. There was some cursing, two sullen glares and an apologetic smile before they were settled in again.  
  
"So what  _are_  you doing anyway?"  
  
Yamamoto hid a smile. Squalo sounded cranky and he  _knew_  the Italian was pissed about the whole affair - with their combined history, he didn't really blame him - but of course, it'd be a cold day in hell the day Superbi Squalo flat out expressed concern without involving violence or death threats. It was endearing, really.  
  
"Writing a novel," Yamamoto said, a tint of pride in his voice.  
  
Squalo blinked.  
  
"Do you even know how to write?"  
  
Yamamoto smiled sweetly.  
  
"What I  _do_  know for certain, is that someone's sleeping on the  _floor_  tonight."  
  
  
  
  
  
The hardest part of being bedridden wasn't the uncomfortable bathroom trips or the inane boredom. The thing that threatened Yamamoto's sanity - his precious, fragile, hard earned sanity - the most was the feeling of helplessness that assaulted him sometimes. The knowledge that he was vulnerable and forced to depend on others for something so basic as to get out of bed. The lack of control.  
  
It made his skin crawl when he thought too hard about it, and the memories started to surface again.  
  
The funny thing about memories were that they changed over time. They shifted and twisted and became something else entirely, and yet remained at the core. And though he could rationally dissect his memories when he was awake and sober and fully conscious of himself, picking the twists and irrational spins that couldn't have possibly happened, Yamamoto still drowned himself in them when they jumped him. The memories never truly left him, but being unable to properly fend for himself made it all the worse. He knew he was doing much better now, that he'd managed to piece his life together after ten years of living in a cold void of forced serenity. He had a lover now, and even if Squalo was... well,  _Squalo_ , it worked out well, all things considered. He had his family back, even if only Tsuna and Gokudera had finally made their peace with him and fallen back into their old friendship. He had his father's unconditional support, in something resembling the old idyllic relationship they'd once had, when he was a teenager. He had his  _life_  back, now, but that didn't mean he didn't have scars.  
  
And the scars were the ghost of fingers running on his skin, the words bouncing inside his skull -  _he_ loved _you, and you_ killed _him_  - over and over again. The flares of panic that spun in his gut and made him want to cry and lash out. Squalo disapproved of his tried and tested method to deal with them, forcing them back into the pool of blue fire within his mind. He said it wasn't healthy. Yamamoto always thought to himself that  _he_  wasn't healthy by a long stretch, but he knew better than to argue with Squalo about such things. Somewhere in his mind, a snide little voice whispered that maybe one day it'd be over. Maybe one day he'd stop feeling the need to skin himself alive and kill everyone on sight. He'd even managed to extend the range of his tolerance to touch to include others beyond Squalo, hadn't he? That was progress. Though Squalo didn't really count, in a way, because Squalo was the only unshakable certainty in the whole world as far as he was concerned, and not even the echoes of Xanxus' voice could change that. Everyone else was progress, Squalo was just... Squalo. He'd been so, so happy when he'd managed to hug his friends for Christmas and not feel himself retching. It'd feel so  _good_  to know they had been happy about it too, almost as if they had missed him draping himself all over them all the time. Yamamoto remembered vaguely that there had been a time when he hadn't even known the meaning of personal space.  
  
"VOOOII, you okay?"  
  
Yamamoto blinked and found himself staring at Squalo's face. He was standing on his crutches in the middle of the room, on his way to the bathroom. He blinked again as his thoughts fluttered all over his head. He noticed faintly that his arms were going numb from holding up his weight for too long.  
  
"Yeah," he gave Squalo a crooked smile as he contained a shudder, feeling a slick, invisible finger trail down his spine. "Just... yeah."  
  
Squalo kissed him, then, quite abruptly. Yamamoto knew he did it only because it threw him out of loop and scrambled his thoughts out of the vicious cycle. It didn't mean it was unwelcome, though. When the liplock broke, he was a bit breathless and possibly looking stupid, judging by the smirk Squalo was giving him.  
  
"Stop lazing about, Moravia wannabe."  
  
Then the Italian sauntered to his armchair, put his earphones back on and went back to reading. Yamamoto gave him a bewildered look.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
Squalo didn't answer.  
  
  
  
  
  
Squalo was drenched in blood.  
  
"How did it go?"  
  
Yamamoto licked his lips as he watched his lover strip efficiently, feeling a strange yearning in his bones. Long, long ago, he wouldn't have been able to really understand Squalo's love for carnage and the glee he felt when he unleashed his sword in full. But he'd indulged in it, he'd embraced it once, and even if he now struggled to keep himself from that cliff, it still called to him sometimes. Squalo looked at him from the corner of his eye, hair streaked red.  
  
"Just be fucking glad I'm not allowed to fuck you yet," the Italian purred with that note of dark promise that, coming from anyone else, would have made Yamamoto lash out in blind panic.  
  
"Just a week more," he said instead, managing a sincere smile. "Then we can, promise."  
  
Squalo scowled, silver eyes narrowed intently. Yamamoto almost hated it when he did that, it felt like he was stepping to pitch the bottom of the ninth inning with a full stadium, naked. He shivered a bit as Squalo scoffed at him.  
  
"Not if it's a fucking  _chore_."  
  
Some days, Yamamoto marveled how Squalo could make him want to strangle him and hug him within the space of a single sentence. He probably gave him a look that said as much, because Squalo snarled at him and stormed into the bathroom without another word.  
  
While Squalo was in the shower, cleaning himself and probably jerking off to take the edge off his bloodlust, Yamamoto laid in bed, sunken in that strange murky fog that was his own libido. His sexual drive was complicated, to say the least; utterly fucked up, to go into details. Sex was... something he enjoyed, in parts, and felt utterly terrified of, in others. Touching Squalo always equaled comfort in his mind, one of his solid anchors to sanity. Touching Squalo and giving him  _pleasure_  gave him a thrill that he couldn't quite put to words. Squalo had always been a good sport about tolerating his need for touch, and making him actually  _enjoy_  it was something Yamamoto found fascinating. But sex was being vulnerable, and the looming shadows in his mind turned sharper whenever he felt himself getting clouded. Yes, it felt good, and  _yes_ , it was satisfying. But he never truly let go and let himself get lost in it, because the fear became crippling as soon as he got too close to that edge. He was honestly jealous of the way Squalo laid himself in bed and let him do as he wanted, the way he could take that leap of faith without breaking down.  
  
He could admit he'd recklessly thrown himself into the sexual aspect of their relationship almost out of spite, to prove a point, but that didn't mean he was entirely comfortable with it. He liked being flippant about things and match Squalo's attitude with his own, but he couldn't be spontaneous about it. He could kiss the man and reach out to touch him just for the sake of it, but anything else required planning and talking about it just so he wouldn't lose his nerve at the last moment. Most of the time, it worked out, simply because Squalo wasn't as sexually driven as Yamamoto would have thought he'd be.  
  
And then sometimes it failed entirely because Squalo would  _look_  at him and snarl furiously, like a feral beast, seeing something he didn't like in him, though hell if Yamamoto could ever hope to know  _what_. It made him guilty, then, to not be able to want things just for the sake of wanting. To feel the sort of uninhibited passion he glimpsed in Squalo's eyes when he dissolved into a mess under him.  
  
To be fucking  _normal_  and stop feeling defective and damaged at the worst possible moment.  
  
Squalo walked out of the bathroom already dressed for bed, toweling his hair furiously. He said nothing of he faded light in Yamamoto's eyes and instead derailed a potentially nerve-wrecking conversation with something so mundane and domestic, it almost hurt.  
  
"I need a haircut," he said, fingering the silky strands that were long enough now to brush the nape of his neck.  
  
He'd never gotten the hang of what exactly he should do with his hair, after he'd cut it.  
  
"Maybe you should let it grow," Yamamoto said softly, as predicted surfacing from his thoughts with a lazy smile.  
  
Squalo arched an eyebrow.  
  
"Biding for world domination now, are we?"  
  
  
  
  
  
Squalo had squinted suspiciously when Yamamoto finally got around replacing his laptop, and continued writing diligently everyday, after grueling training to get back in shape after two months of being confined to bed. He never talked about his so called novel, and Squalo never asked to read it, but it became part of their routine. One day, as they lazed around in bed after training, showers, lunch and a fabulous bickering fit about Tyr's goddamn watch, Yamamoto was typing whatever nonsense he had conjured and Squalo was busy trying to solve a Rubik's cube. Yamamoto suddenly stopped and calmly closed the laptop long before his usual time was up.  
  
"Squalo?"  
  
Squalo hummed in reply, sliding the plastic cube around and trying for the life of him to remember how the hell he was supposed to solve the damn thing. He blamed Gokudera for bringing the stupid toy up in conversation, during lunch.  
  
"Let's have sex."  
  
Normal people didn't announce things that way. Normal people would touch each other,  _look_  at each other and let things flow naturally. They weren't normal people.  
  
"Why?" Squalo always asked him, a tad suspiciously, squinting at him for any sign of something amiss.  
  
Yamamoto loved him dearly just for that. He shrugged.  
  
"It's been a while," he said, placing the laptop on the nightstand on his side of the bed. Since Squalo was still absently fiddling with the cube - and probably undoing all his work to solve it - Yamamoto added: "I want to."  
  
Squalo looked at him for a long, long moment, as if judging the sincerity of that statement, before he reached to the nightstand and dropped the cube there. Then he laid on his back, posture casually open, and shrugged back.  
  
"Okay."  
  
Yamamoto reached with gentle hands, working Squalo out of his clothes with just the bare minimum cooperation from the Italian. It wasn't that he didn't care about what they were doing, but that he had enough self-control to keep himself from stepping on Yamamoto's sanity. Squalo loved and hated this part the most, because it could take Yamamoto five minutes or an hour to actually  _get_  to things. On the other hand, Yamamoto's fascination to just... touch him, to trace his scars and get familiar with every inch of his skin, as if he could have changed from the last time they'd done this, was not something to complain about. Especially not now that he worked up enough nerve to use his  _tongue_  to do the touching. One of these days, Squalo was going to introduce him to that lovely, lovely thing that were blowjobs.  
  
"Okay?" Yamamoto asked quietly, kissing along the tendons of Squalo's throat, one of the most sensitive areas in his body. "Just..."  
  
Squalo let out the moan he'd been holding out, bending a knee and rolling his hips up against the body above him, because that was his cue to touch back, within reason. He knew what lines he could or couldn't cross, and when, all the things needed to keep Yamamoto's ghosts away from him. Part of Squalo, deep down, wondered sometimes, in the silence of his mind, if it'd had been anything like what he'd done when he was fourteen. He remembered Xanxus fondly most of the time, tried to wrap his mind around what they said he'd done, and ended up always giving himself a headache when he tried to equate the two concepts in his mind. He lived with the proof that it was true, he dealt with the aftermath every day of his life, but he still couldn't connect it directly to that awkward sixteen year old kid that bit him more than kissed him and set out to prove him he was not a goddamn fag by fucking him behind the rose garden in the main Vongola manor.   
  
"That's my line," he rasped in a low voice, letting his fingers curl at the base of Yamamoto's neck and then pull him down for a fierce kiss.  
  
He didn't pull on Yamamoto's clothes, trying to get them off, and instead he just let out a hissing breath when he felt fabric slide against his skin just the  _right_  way. He tried not to think about it being skin one day. Yamamoto felt his own breathing speed up as Squalo's body arched up against him, clearly not minding his actions. When he broke the kiss, nuzzling the underside of Squalo's jaw, Yamamoto reached a hand for the plastic tube in the nightstand.  
  
"Tell me you love me," Yamamoto begged softly, right on cue as Squalo parted his legs for him.  
  
Funny how in the end it had been Squalo who'd kept them from actually having sex for the longest time. One day, he supposed, he'd know the meaning of that little interlude, why Yamamoto needed it like he needed breathing.  
  
"I do," he panted, more out of anticipation than anything Yamamoto had actually  _done_  to him. And again, right on cue, he felt fingers slide into him, causing goosebumps to break all over his skin.   
  
"Promise me," Yamamoto went on, half feverish, half lucid, plying him open until Squalo felt his toes curl a little, "that you're not gonna die. Promise me to stay."  
  
Squalo cried out in reply, feeling the pad of fingers caressing him from the inside out, but it was okay, because Yamamoto considered that answer enough and kissed him again. Squalo writhed under him, forcefully curbing the urge to just  _reciprocate_. To get those stupid clothes out of the way and let that skin know how exactly it felt to be touched without spite. It wasn't time yet, though, it might never be time, but he could wait. And he could take what he had and keep it to himself.  
  
Yamamoto felt that ripple of pleasure and pure satisfaction when he made Squalo scream. It didn't matter if dropping a pin made Squalo scream,  _he_  was making the man writhe and shift and rock against him with sheer lust. He felt wanted and loved and  _safe_ , and ultimately it was that and not the feeling of Squalo clenching around him like a vice, what pushed him off the edge and into the closest thing to an orgasm he could get.  
  
"It's okay," Squalo said, a tad hoarsely, holding Yamamoto right where he'd slumped on top of him.  
  
"But--" Yamamoto swallowed hard, already feeling the tiny ants walking all over under his skin and demanding a shower.  
  
"Just catch your breath," Squalo slid his fingers into his hair, the gesture oddly soothing.  
  
Yamamoto didn't relax, but he stayed were he was, cradled in Squalo's lax and sated embrace. It made him jittery, but not in the bad way; at least he didn't think so. Yamamoto concentrated on the sound of Squalo's breathing and wondered if that was progress too.  
  
  
  
  
  
Haru didn't have an ounce of healer in her and she knew it. Squalo wondered if having her tend to his wounds was somehow part of his punishment for being a reckless fucktwit.  
  
"You're so lucky to be  _alive_ ," the woman nagged him, denying him the easy way out with just a dose of sun flames; instead torturing him with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol.  
  
"VOOOII, it wasn't  _that_  bad," the words trailed off in a hiss as she ruthlessly rubbed the cut under his eye until he was blinking, dangerously close to tearing up.  
  
"Superbi Squalo, haven't you learned to stay  _the hell_  away from exploding buildings?"  
  
Squalo flinched, both at the swear - Haru only ever swore at Gokudera, and then she was kinda entitled to, since she'd gone and married the moron in the first place - and her words. It was something that no one really talked about anymore, out of respect to Yamamoto's grief and, at first, fear of  _his_  wrath. Squalo reckoned that the stupid brats liked him enough by now that they respected him too. He looked away from the brown eyes looking at him reprovingly and sulked in silence.  
  
Haru felt her mouth twitch in annoyance. Couldn't the stupid moron realize how much they  _worried_  about him? Stupid, skinny bastard, she'd  _cried_  for him, he didn't have a right to just waltz out of the rumble with a concussion and a bleeding face and expect them to shrug it off. He was  _family_ , like Kyoko or Tsuna or Gokudera or Yamamoto or any of the others. If he hurt, they hurt; if he bled, they bled.  
  
Honestly,  _she_  hadn't been brought up in the mafia, and she knew at least that much.  
  
"You're telling Yamamoto about this."  
  
That seemed to be enough to get his attention. Squalo squawked indignantly when she smeared some sticky yellow paste on the cut, decidedly pressing far harder than strictly necessary, and gave her what she supposed was a panicked look. It was kind of hard to tell.  
  
" _What!_ "  
  
Haru gave Squalo a humorless smile when he had the  _nerve_  to look outraged. She glared, like she glared at her boys when they were being unruly, and noticed Squalo visibly cringed.  
  
"You," Haru said, poking him in the chest rather forcefully, "are  _not_  pretending this didn't happen." When Squalo opened his mouth, Haru went on, not giving him a chance to retaliate. "You nearly  _died_. We  _thought_  you'd died."  
  
_Again_ , she didn't add, but didn't need to, judging by the rebellious light in Squalo's eyes. Until that moment, Haru had never understood why Gokudera said he always felt the urge to strangle Squalo and shake him until the cogs in his head aligned properly. She and Squalo had always gotten along fairly well, all things considered. He was good for Yamamoto, didn't pick up fights with her, and actually liked to watch the same sort of horror movies she loved. And she kept her nose away from his private affairs, looked away when went out to do a job, and gave him plenty of space. Once he and Gokudera became friends - because they  _were_  friends, no matter what silly nonsense her husband said - she'd gotten to know him better, and realized that, like Gokudera, he was just too well bred to not be a gentleman, so as long as she didn't qualify as a threat.  
  
Haru wondered if she was giving up that privileged position at that moment.  
  
"VOOOII," Haru couldn't help but notice the scream was mildly subdued, even if it still made her ears ring, "you're  _overreacting_."  
  
"Oh, yes. I'm overreacting." She pushed him down on the stool when he threatened to storm away. "Because that wasn't in any way irresponsible and  _stupid_."  
  
"Woman, I'm not your  _son_ ," Squalo snarled at her, patience finally reaching a limit, though he looked fairly chastised underneath his outrage. " _Stop treating me like I am_."  
  
Haru scoffed.  
  
" _Damn_  right you're not my son," she harrumphed, scowling, "my children know better than to  _blow up a building while they're still inside it._ "  
  
"That's not--"  
  
"You  _what?_ "  
  
Both Squalo and Haru jumped and turned to find Yamamoto standing in the door way, giving them a look of sheer incredulous shock. Haru folded her arms over her chest and raised her nose up in the air, clearly ticked.  
  
"Your husband," she intoned dryly, looking at Yamamoto in the eye, "has the survival instincts of a  _lemming_."  
  
"VOOOII, shut the fuck up, it's not like that!"  
  
Yamamoto took in the sight of a well and truly pissed off Haru - he could count with the fingers of one hand the times he'd ever seen her raise her voice, never mind act that way - and then fixed Squalo a look that spoke volumes of what exactly it looked like.  
  
"Did you blow up a building while you were inside it?" He asked, tone so casual it made Haru flinch.  
  
Squalo pretended not to swallow hard.  
  
"Well,  _yes_ , but it's not--"  
  
Yamamoto snarled at him, and it felt like the temperature in the room had docked a solid ten degrees in the space of a second. It made the hairs in the back of Haru's neck stand on end. Squalo, because he was  _Squalo_ , snarled back, though the effect was ruined by the blob of yellow ointment under his eye and the bandages around his head.  
  
Yamamoto turned and left the room without another word.  
  
"...he'll get over it," Squalo told Haru, more to break the awkward silence than any real need to share insight into his relationship with his lover.  
  
Down the corridor, they heard a door slam shut hard enough to make them both cringe.   
  
"I'll just set up a bed for you in the infirmary," Haru said with a sigh, mouth still twisted disapprovingly. "Hahiii, I could really use a big slice of chocolate cake right now." Squalo opened his mouth. "And  _no_ , you can't get some. You're  _grounded_ , young man."  
  
Squalo's expression almost made up for all the grief he caused.  
  
  
  
  
  
Squalo crept back into their room cautiously, half expecting an explosion if he so much as twitched the wrong muscle. Yamamoto was lying in the middle of the bed, watching a movie on mute. Squalo had never really figured out why Yamamoto did that, but he just took it as another quirk. He closed the door behind him, quietly, and stood there a moment, deciding whether he should speak or not.  
  
"Just getting clean clothes," he said finally, strolling across the room to the closet, feeling the weight of amber eyes on his back.  
  
Yamamoto hadn't 'gotten over it' yet. In fact, after a week of frigid silence, Squalo had moved out of the infirmary and into the old room Sawada had originally given him in the base, when he'd first arrived in this time. Things in the base were tense and awkward as everyone pretty much stayed clear of both of them, keenly aware this wasn't just another little spat. Squalo had soon realized that Yamamoto was not going to talk to him until he apologized, but he firmly refused to apologize for something he considered inconsequential. He wasn't a fucking wilting flower that would crumble with a strong breeze, he was a goddamn  _assassin_. He was still fucking Varia, as much as everyone seemed to forget that tiny detail. He took risks and indulged in danger, and he was not going to apologize for being  _himself._  
  
He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as he realized Yamamoto was suddenly standing right behind him, somewhat looming. Squalo stood up straight, but didn't turn to face him, staring straight into the depths of the closet, studying the neat rows of clothes evenly split between them. He heard a rustle of cloth, and counted a hundred heartbeats of the increasingly uncomfortable silence.  
  
"Squalo," Yamamoto began, but Squalo didn't let him get far, growling in annoyance.  
  
"Oh, so we're talking now, are we?" He whirled around to unleash the full strength of his sneer. "Or do you just want to  _preach_?"  
  
It was hard to explain what anger did to Yamamoto's face, but it transfigured completely into something Squalo was keenly unfamiliar with. He made Yamamoto feel a lot of things, but anger had, until that point, never been one of them.  
  
"You could have  _died_ ," Yamamoto snarled, grabbing him by the shoulders in a bruising, desperate grip. "How do you think I'd--"  
  
"VOOOII, that's the fucking  _problem_ ," Squalo wrenched himself away, sidestepping Yamamoto so he was no longer between him and the closet. "It's gotta be about  _you_  all the fucking time. And when it isn't, you throw a fucking  _snit_  and think it'll be alright!"  
  
"A  _snit_?" Yamamoto roared, reaching decibel levels Squalo hadn't known he could. "You go and nearly commit  _suicide_ ,  ** _again_** , and it's just a fucking  _snit_?"  
  
"It is if you think I'm stupid enough to die just like that!" Squalo snarled, eyes feral. "I'm not a fucking child. I was doing my fucking job, and as far as I'm concerned, it was a goddamn  _success!_ "  
  
"It's not success if you die!" Something inside Yamamoto's eyes was unraveling, letting out all those ugly corners of his mind he'd worked so hard to hold back, for the sake of his sanity. "Superbi Squalo, he finally managed to get himself killed, but it's okay, because he fulfilled his job!"  
  
"And you know what else you forgot?" Squalo yelled right back, shaking. "He died fucking  _proud_  of it."  
  
_The Rain only aspires to pride._  
  
The words echoed in the sudden silence of Yamamoto's brain, bringing with them a tidal wave of emotions that overwhelmed him almost entirely. The memory raised ominously, pushing through every defense he'd built against it. Squalo slain, broken, and still laughing his ass off, because he'd gone down fighting. Yamamoto gave Squalo a blank look.  
  
"So what," he said, voice eerily devoid of tone, "am I supposed to be proud of you for getting killed like that?"  
  
"VOOOII, stop talking about me like I'm dead!" Squalo felt seconds away from stomping his foot in frustration.  
  
Distantly, he acknowledged that at least they were talking again. If yelling profanity at each other counted as talking.  
  
"But you  _could be_ ," Yamamoto insisted softly, feeling something inside him break all over again as he wondered why Squalo couldn't  _understand_  that.  
  
He stepped closer to the Italian, but stopped when Squalo narrowed his eyes warningly. Squalo let out a frustrated noise between his teeth.  
  
" _Could_  be, but I'm  _not,_ " he emphasized the words clearly, as if he could smack them clean into Yamamoto's brain. "What the fuck does it matter if--"  
  
And then Yamamoto grabbed him by the arm and slammed him against the nearest wall, pressing up against him until they were face to face. On instinct alone, Squalo snarled dangerously, eyes flashing with the promise of retribution.  
  
"It matters because  _I love you_ ," Yamamoto ground out, feeling two decades of guilt melting into anger that was bursting at the seams. "It matters because  _I_  care, you goddamn selfish  _bastard!_ "  
  
Squalo's outraged reply was lost when Yamamoto slammed their lips together in something that could barely qualify as a kiss. It was raw and brutal, and called forth something dark, coiling inside Squalo's gut. He kissed back as hard, pouring out anger and resentment and frustration into it and completely bypassing all those lines they'd worked ten years building. When Yamamoto ground his hips against him, rough and vicious, Squalo hooked a knee on his waist and arched off his back, giving as good as he got. Then Yamamoto pushed a hand inside Squalo's pants and tug sharply on the erection that was just suddenly  _there_. Squalo keened against his lips, clearly wanting more, but the sound seemed to bring Yamamoto back to his senses. He pulled away abruptly, as if scaled.  
  
Panting, Squalo leaned against the wall, his clothes in disarray and his lips swollen and bruised. Yamamoto stared at him through wide eyes, caught in the sudden euphoria that most people recognized as lust, and the budding panic at what he could have done, if he hadn't stopped. He was horrified at his own erection, his own need to keep going and the sudden impulse to just throw Squalo on the floor and fuck him raw. He crumbled.  
  
"I--"  
  
Squalo slid down the floor and knelt in front of Yamamoto, gathering him in his arms as he breathed hard and tried to find his own composure. Yamamoto's shoulders shook, but Squalo didn't bother to find out if he was actually crying or not. That was unimportant.  
  
"Breathe," Squalo ordered sharply, closing his eyes and following his own advice.  
  
"I almost--" Yamamoto's voice cracked painfully. "I could have...  _oh god._ "  
  
"No," Squalo insisted, running his fingers over the broad back. "You wouldn't have."  
  
"Yes, I  _would_  have." Yamamoto snapped back, flirting with a full-scale panic attack. "I was so angry that I wanted--"  
  
Squalo kissed him. Yamamoto tried to pull away, but for the first time ever, Squalo didn't let him. He held him firmly until the kiss died on its own, slowly.  
  
"You wouldn't have," Squalo repeated, eyes sober and  _certain_ , "because you can't make me do anything I don't want to. And I  _want_  you, too."  
  
Yamamoto  _did_  cry, then, somehow making himself small enough to curl in Squalo's lap, terrified and hurting. Squalo didn't complain, in the morning, when they woke up in a tangled mess on the floor and his neck was killing him.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
II.  
  


_So sit on top of the world  
And tell me how you're feeling;  
What you feel is what I feel for you.  
  
Take my hand and if I'm lying to you,  
I'll always be alone...  
If I'm lying to you.  
Take your time, if I'm lying to you.  
I know you'll find that you believe me.  
You believe me_  
  
~  _"Take my hand,"_  by Dido.

  
  
  
  
On his thirty-fourth birthday, Yamamoto gave Squalo a copy of his finished novel.  
  
It was just an email attachment with a little note, titled  _Loss_. Squalo read the whole thing in one night, curled up in bed with his laptop as Yamamoto slept quietly next to him. It was written in Japanese and made absolutely no sense, if one didn't know the author and lacked Squalo's talent to read between the lines.  
  
On his thirty-seven birthday, Squalo gave Yamamoto a book.  
  
It was a leather-bound volume, printed in glossy paper and titled  _Gain_. Yamamoto read the first line of crisp, no-nonsense Italian and felt his throat close off as he recognized his own words, polished and refined into another language. Essentially the same, yes, but phrased in a different tone.  
  
"It's not what you say," Squalo told him later that day, drinking a beer as the party slowly died down around them, "it's  _how_  you say it."  
  
Yamamoto looked at his book and his lover and his family all around him, and firmly told himself he'd be alright.  
  
It'd be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally written in April 2010.]


End file.
